Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress

261 Pages·2009·3.232 MB·English

by  Richard Weikart (auth.)

Hitler’s Ethic
List of Previous Publications
From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics and Racism in Germany. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Socialist Darwinism: Evolution in German Socialist Thought from Marx to Bernstein.
San Francisco: International Scholars Publications, 1999.
The Myth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. San Francisco: International Scholars Publications,
1997.
Hitler’s Ethic
The Nazi Pursuit of
Evolutionary Progress
Richard Weikart
HITLER’S ETHIC: THE NAZI PURSUIT OF EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESS
Copyright © Richard Weikart, 2009.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-61807-7
All rights reserved.
First published in 2009 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States—a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Where this book is distributed in the UK, Europe and the rest of the world,
this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies
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Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States,
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-38073-2 ISBN 978-0-230-62398-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230623989
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weikart, Richard, 1958–
Hitler's ethic : the Nazi pursuit of evolutionary progress / Richard
Weikart.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-349-38073-2
1. Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945—Philosophy. 2. Hitler, Adolf, 1889–1945—
Political and social views. 3. Eugenics—Germany—History—20th century.
4. Ethics, Evolutionary. 5. National socialism—Philosophy. 6. Germany—
Ethnic relations—History—20th century. I. Title.
DD247.H5W375 2009
17197—dc22 2009002646
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: August 2009
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
C O N T E N T S
List of Illustrations vii
Preface ix
Brief Chronology xi
Introduction 1
One Hitler as Moral Crusader and Liar 17
Two The Cult of Evolutionary Progress 31
Three Racial Struggle 55
Four Morally Upright Aryans and Immoral Jews 85
Five Hitler’s Socialism: Building the People’s Community 101
Six Sexual Morality and Population Expansion 121
Seven Controlling Reproduction to Improve the
Human Species 137
Eight The Struggle for Living Space: War and Expansionism 159
Nine Justifying Murder and Genocide 179
Conclusion 197
Notes 205
Bibliography 235
Index 247
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I L L U S T R A T I O N S
I.1 Nazi school poster: “Eradication of the Sick
and Weak in Nature” 4
1.1 Nazi poster: “Death to the Lies” with “high finance”
on the serpent’s back and “Marxism” on its belly 20
2.1 “Life Requires struggle” 32
2.2 “All of nature is a powerful struggle between
power and weakness, an eternal victory of the strong
over the weak.” Adolf Hitler 37
3.1 “Racial Fronts” (from a book by J. W. Ludowici,
a Nazi official) 57
3.2 “Fertility and Race: The Growth of the Slavs in
Europe” (from Volk in Gefahr) 60
3.3 Nordic racism in schools (from Nazi periodical) 66
3.4 “Should the same soul, the same mind, inhabit
these different bodies?” (from SS pamphlet) 69
3.5 Slavs as Subhumans (cover of Nazi pamphlet) 72
3.6 Nazi poster: “Degenerate Music” with ape playing sax 80
4.1 Article from Nazi periodical: “The Criminal Jew”;
captions by photos indicate the crimes each committed:
swindler, counterfeiter, pickpocket, etc. 88
5.1 Nazi poster: “Don’t contribute/[instead] sacrifice.” 103
5.2 Nazi Weekly Proverb quoting Hitler: “The individual
must and will as always perish; only the
Volk must remain.” 115
6.1 “The German Mother: Every child that she brings
into the world is a battle that she wins for the existence
or non-existence of her Volk. Adolf Hitler.”
(from Nazi periodical) 128
viii Illustrations
7.1 Certificate from the Second International
Eugenics Congress, 1921 149
7.2 “The Threat of the Subhuman,” showing fertility
rates of criminals (top two figures), parents with
special education children (middle figure), the
average German family (bottom left), and the
German academic (bottom right)
(from Volk in Gefahr) 151
7.3 “Sterilization: Not Punishment—but Liberation”
(from Nazi periodical) 153
P R E F A C E
When I received my Ph.D. fourteen years ago, I never imagined that
I would be writing about Hitler or Nazism. I thought the history of
the Third Reich was an overworked field, so I figured the chances
of uncovering anything genuinely new, interesting, and truthful were
scant. Nonetheless, as I investigated the history of evolutionary ethics
in pre-World War I Germany, I noticed—to my surprise—remarkable
similarities between the ideas of those promoting evolutionary eth-
ics and Hitler’s worldview. This discovery (which happened around
1995) led me to investigate Hitler’s worldview more closely, and this
research convinced me that I had found something important to say
about Hitler’s ideology.
Many scholars have noticed Hitler’s reliance on social Darwinism,
and many recent works have explored the importance of eugenics and
scientific racism in Nazi ideology and policy. I am indebted to many
of these fine expositions of Nazi thought and practice, and I thank all
those scholars (listed in my bibliography) for laying the groundwork for
my own work.
I would also like to thank those scholars who read all or part of
the manuscript: Edward Ross Dickinson, Derek Hastings, and Randy
Bytwerk, as well as a couple of anonymous readers. Also special thanks
to Randy Bytwerk for helping with six of the illustrations (the dust-
jacket and figures 1.1, 2.1, 3.4, 5.1, and 5.2).
I am greatly indebted to my own university for providing research
funds, access to Inter-Library Loan (thanks again to Julie Reuben), and
a research leave for the academic year 2007–2008, which allowed me
to complete the manuscript.
Lastly, I thank my precious wife, Lisa, and my seven children (Joy,
John, Joseph, Miriam, Christine, Hannah, and Sarah) for their love and
support.